Housing Finance In India A Case Study Of Lic Housing Finance Limited

Housing, as one of the three basic needs of life, always remains on the top priority of any person, economy, government and society at large. In India, majority of the population lives in slums and shabby shelters in rural areas. From the last decade, the Government of India has been continuously trying to strengthen the housing sector by introducing various housing loan schemes for rural and urban population. The first attempt in this regard was the National Housing Policy (NHP), which was introduced in 1988. The National Housing Bank (NHB) was set up in 1988 as an apex institution for housing finance and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The main objective of the bank is to promote and establish the housing financial institutions in the country as well as to provide refinance facilities to housing finance corporations and scheduled commercial banks. Moreover, for the salaried section, the tax rebates on housing loans have been introduced. The paper is based on the case study of LIC Housing Finance Ltd., which analyzes region-wise disbursements of individual house loans, their portfolio amounts and the defaults for the last ten years, i.e., from 1995-96 to 2004-05 by working out relevant ratios in terms of percentages and the compound annual growth rates. A relevant chart has also been prepared to highlight the results.